Saturday, September 14, 2013

More about birds

It's been a busy week, and I've been writing, writing. The weather has been mad. We thought the Fall weather had settled in, but on Wednesday the temperatures suddenly soared to 33 degrees C (with a humidity factor that took it to 43 degrees), and Thursday was much the same.

Then Thursday night the weather broke at last, with thunderstorms over the forest - and in the morning the temperature had dropped by almost 20 degrees. And through it all, I haven't stopped writing. Except to watch the birds in the garden. We've had some new visitors, some of which we haven't quite been able to identify.

The first one, though, was unmistakable. We've been hearing his voice since we got here, but thought it was a crow. Then we started feeding the chipmunks unshelled peanuts, and look who showed up on the deck to steal them away!

The cheeky and noisy blue jay moves at speed....

We're not so sure what this ground dweller is....

But the most likely candidate is the purple finch

The gold finches continue to delight...

Sharing the tree with the little chickadees

But who was the mysterious stranger who appeared today?

I thought, by the speckled throat, that she must be a thrush, but her beak is wrong

In the end, I think she must be a female purple finch.

This white throated nuthatch is a regular visitor

This, I think, must be a female black throated blue warbler

Sharing a feeder with the downy woodpecker

Our pair of humming birds have not yet flown south for the winter

And young mourning doves settle under the tree

And as well as all this bird life, we have encountered an opossum (which we think is living under the house) who comes out at night to eat apples on the deck (I'm trying to get a photo, but it's tricky - I don't want to startle it with a flash). A very odd creature, quite different to a NZ possum. And today, after much patient waiting,Em got the chipmunks to eat out of her hands...

So, there is much to distract me in the garden. But my work is going well. Maybe, what they say is true - life is all about balance.